Jammer's Review

Star Trek: Voyager

"Dreadnought"

"When a bomb starts talking about itself in the third person, I get worried." — Paris

Nutshell: A very "neutral" show. Some good moments, but not enough to turn this into anything more than a routine hardware show.

The crew comes across a forgotten Alpha Quadrant doomsday weapon named "Dreadnought," manufactured two years ago by the Cardassians to attack the Maquis, but captured and modified by then-Maquis B'Elanna Torres to destroy a Cardassian outpost. The missile had mysteriously disappeared into the Badlands—now presumed to have been brought to the Delta Quadrant the same way the Voyager was. Since that time it has gone berserk and found a new target—a populated planet. If it reaches its target, two million innocent people will die.

If you, like me, are willing to concede that in the vast infinitum of the Delta Quadrant the Voyager just happens to come across this lost missile flying on a random course, you've taken the first step in accepting the premise. "Dreadnought" is a decent, solid show with very little to scrutinize. There's nothing really bad about it, but there's nothing inherently compelling about it either. The show is basically five acts of setup that leads to a lackluster foregone conclusion.

Foregone conclusion settings aren't bad, but they do require expert handling to really be exciting. And, simply put, this episode is just not that exciting because nothing very unexpected happens. It's entertaining and reasonably paced, but it doesn't have the pressure-cooker sensation it really needs.

There are some good ideas here, like the idea of an unstoppable weapon programmed by Torres coming back to haunt her out of her past. The unstoppable weapon is an old but reliable idea (though I somewhat doubt that if the Cardassians had such an advanced weapon this would be the first we would hear of it).

There's the idea that Torres had reprogrammed the computer to speak in her voice, which is entertaining with its perverse undertones (I don't know if I would want a weapon of mass destruction to talk with my voice). As the Voyager tries to subdue the missile, it speaks back in a monotone B'Elanna voice indicating its catastrophic intentions. Everybody on the bridge turns and looks accusingly at B'Elanna as the Dreadnought speaks.

There's the idea of the missile heading toward Rakosan, a world inhabited by peaceful, friendly aliens. Janeway contacts the Rakosan First Minister Kellan (Dan Kern) and informs him of the situation. He responds with an answer that is becoming common to hear: "Your reputation proceeds you." It's rather unfortunate for Voyager that wherever they go, the message "Oh no, here comes the infernal Voyager!" follows them. It's intriguing that the Federation has become the bad guys in the face of the Delta Quadrant simply because of Kazon rumors.

Then there's traitorous Crewman Jonas (Raphael Sbarge) who makes his third appearance as the guy who wants to talk to Seska and supplies the Kazon Nistrim with information. (He was also in "Alliances" and "Threshold.") Just as in "Threshold," his presence here has no impact on the plot, but it sparks my interest on what the writers are going to eventually do with this guy. Hopefully there will be a payoff soon.

Despite the decent ideas, there's nothing standout in the execution. In fact, it's positively pedestrian. Everything about this show—from the opening teaser of pregnant Ensign Wildman (Nancy Hower) talking with Doc and Kes about a name for her baby (which, after some 13 months, still hasn't been born) to the Dreadnought's seemingly self-aware computer faking a shutdown procedure, to Janeway arming the auto-destruct sequence—has a ho-hum effect. I did, however, like Janeway's discussion with Kellan where she explains that she plans to stop the missile by blowing up the Voyager in its path. Kellan has a reassuring response, saying that Voyager's grim reputation isn't deserved.

The latter acts follow Torres as she beams aboard the missile and desperately tries to override the Dreadnought computer. While Biggs-Dawson is certainly watchable, this isn't exciting, and with the majority of the closing scenes confined inside the missile as Torres tries to fool the computer with hypothetical games and paradoxical puzzles, the circumstance begins to grow tedious. All of this would be fine, but the final answer to the problem is not as punchy as it could've been, and what should've been a heart-pounding countdown to disaster is instead a drawn-out underwhelming solution.

There's also one angle of the show that seems completely unfinished. This involves a scene between Paris and Torres which reveals that Paris has been having problems "fitting in" lately. He's been showing up to staff meetings late, and apparently even got into a fight with another officer over a trivial matter. What is the relevance of this? There's no follow-up scene so it seems like an abandoned idea. Perhaps something got cut.

"Dreadnought" is just a neutral, "okay" show. It's missing the momentum it needs to really be fun.

35 comments on this review

This episode had great moments and a nice performance from Dawson.
However, I found it curious that Voyager's initial attempts to stop
Dreadnought were thwarted by its abilities to adapt to Voyager's methods,
somewhat similar to the Borg's abilities to adapt. Since Dreadnought was
built by the Cardassians, this makes one wonder if Gul Madred managed to
get something out of Picard after all.

I thought this was one of the better episodes of the season. And although
some of the action might have been sluggish, the dialogue between Torres
and the weapon more than made up for it. What I really thought was missing
from this episode was a closing scene where Janeway visits Torres in
sickbay, to congratulate her and thank her for saving the ship, and Torres
only being mad at herself for causing the deaths of the Rekosa fleet
pilots. I definitely would have loved to have someone say "Well at least
we were lucky enough to have come across the weapon before it crashed into
a planet!"

"I definitely would have loved to have someone say "Well at least we were
lucky enough to have come across the weapon before it crashed into a
planet!"

That's hilarious--way too self-aware for Star Trek to ever do. I remember
thinking this episode was so cool & intense ten years ago, and
rewatching it now, I was bored. Jammer's quite right in saying that
everything is a foregone conclusion. World is saved, ship is disabled, and
there is no chance in hell Voyager could take advantage of Dreadnought's
technology.

The most fascinating angle is B'Elanna's former insubordination to
Chakotay; there seems to be such tension and even bad blood between them
about it. But the whole thing is dropped the moment it's announced. I would
have loved to see more history from Chakotay's crew.

Ugggh... The similarities between this episode and Season 5's
"Warhead".... I mean, Voyager squandering its premise and ripping off
prior Star Trek stories was one (unforgivable) thing, but once it started
copying itself (a retread of a retread?) it made me wonder, as Jammer
wondered in his review of "Warhead," if the Star Trek TV franchise really
did run out of gas...

I've watched this episode a really long time ago, and I'm watching it again
as I work through Voyager.

I just don't understand what is this ship's fascination with detecting and
then picking up junk in space. First it's rusted iron... then mechanic
robots... not debris from a ship.

I am surprised that travelling at such fast speeds - like warp 9 or 9.9
(I'm not really sure what their "normal" speed is usually at) - that they
would be detecting crap like this in the first place.

And of course, this is now the second time this season that they have
picked up something from the alpha quadrant. They are taking something that
should be astronomically improbable and made it a common occurrence. They
are 2 for 17 at this point in the season.

The rest is just moot. It really doesn't matter if there's a story here or
not - the premise is implausible and is hokey. The writers really just want
to tell useless stories that have really no importance and are entirely
forgettable.

The way I always justify the 'improbable' thing is... in the Star Trek
universe, it's established that there's an infinite number of multiverses
in which virtually everything that CAN happen WILL happen, in one of the
multiverses. I just assume we're watching the specific universe in which
Voyager happened to coincidentally run into the rusted truck (which was
probably inevitable if the truck was on the 'path' to the AQ) and then run
into the Dreadnaught (likewise). After all, that particular universe is no
more or less likely to occur than the infinite number of other universes,
so why *shouldn't* we be observing it?

I really enjoyed this episode, even though it felt like a rip off of Dark
Star. By VOYAGER standards, this might even be a three star outing for me.
I mean, when you compare it to the other crap they put out in season two,
this one is pretty good. If this episode aired on TNG or DS9 though, I
think it would be two stars at best. This season of Voyager has sucked so
hard, I've had to start lowering my standards a little to keep up.

I'm beginning to think the contest for "suckiest star trek series ever" is
a tighter race than I had previously suspected. I thought Enterprise had
the title on lock down. But now, I don't know. Voyager is definitely
putting up more of a fight than I had remembered.

'Your reputation preceeds you captain Janeway, we heard you guys bring
death and destruction wherever you go!'
'Who told you that, first minister?'
'Why it was our good friends the unpredictable bloodthirsty tribal
warriors!'

This would've been a lot better if it hadn't been Star Trek but some other
show were bad things can actually happen.

Also I want B'ellana to do some Klingon stuff already, she passed up some
prime opportunities to hit various vital parts of that stuck-up missile
with a well placed blow of a wrench this episode.

Haha, I get what @Destructor is saying. Given that there are 'infinite'
parallel versions of the universe nested within a 'multiverse' - then the
probability that we are 'observing' that particular version (where all of
the unlikely occurences that we've seen on Voyager thus far, all happen in
an unlikely chain) - is no more or less likely than observing a universe
where these events didn't occur.

It's similar to the fact that, in a lottery where 6 numbers between 1 and
40 are drawn at random, the probability of the numbers resulting in the
sequence: 1,2,3,4,5,6 - is no more or less likely than any other 6 number
sequence.

@Ken "99% of the shows take place in the same universe/reality anyway." -
EXACTLY, and what makes you think THIS universe/reality isn't the 'strange'
one, where all these unlikely things happen?

Haha, again I agree it's absurd: but @Destructor's justification is
interesting, amusing and does make logical sense, considering that Star
Trek has already established that the multiverse exists (e.g. TOS's
'Mirror, Mirror', DS9's 'Shattered Mirror' etc).

But of course, @Destructor, @Ken and myself are all on the same side: in
'reality' all these events are crazily impossible considering the vastness
of the Milky Way galaxy. And it is exceptionally lame that the crew keeps
bumping into Alpha Quadrant objects, the other Caretaker etc.

Even if this reality was the strange one, there is nothing the necessitates
this reality to have ALL of the strange occurrencies.

Finding BOTH the dreadnought and the rusted truck in space should probably
be next to 0% (like 0.000000001%).

YET, in season two, after only 17 episodes, the probability of this
occurring is 11.7%. Even across the first 2 seasons, it's still at an
alarming 4% (and I forget if there was any earth-related finds in the delta
quadrant... if there was, then we need to bump this % up).

Even if you accept the crazy occurrence this episode, you can't accept this
episode AND the 37's.

It's not like Voyager starts up saying, "We are in the universe where
highly improbable things happen!"

Really, let's just call a Spade a Spade here, okay? The writers sucked on
this show.

It's not about the relative improbability of each event. That is how you
would calculate the statistical probability in a *single* universe. The
idea is that you trasnfer your calculation to the multiverse where you are
merely picking a universe.

Thanks to Carbetarian for also seeing the Dark Star rip-off (or hommage,
depending on how you look at it.) I'd also like to agree that this is just
too improbable to be anything but silly. And let me add another point,
which no one has mentioned: how ridiculous the whole 'doomsday weapon
created by the Cardassians' idea is. I don't care if it was modified by
the Maquis or not. This thing is the size of a shuttle, and it can hold off
Voyager and the defense fleet of a planet (granted less advanced). If
Voyager can't simply destroy the thing once it was found, and is at risk of
being destroyed by its secondary defense systems (as opposed to the primary
detonation charge that can destroy a moon), and the thing can go over warp
9 and adapt itself to any technology then why didn't someone in the Alpha
quadrant invent it (assuming it is a hybrid of Cardassian and Maquis tech),
make 10,000, and nuke every enemy civilization in the Alpha quadrant???

My point is that the tech simply exists to string the story line along and
allow Torres to have some interaction scenes - but to do so Voyager cannot
just destroy it, so then the tech makes no sense at all. Just more poor
writing. This episode was crap.

There is a deeper message here for humanity: if we create weapons of mass
destruction we cannot be assured that they will not be used. There are
still 20,000 nuclear warheads ready to launch in this world, and more
created everyday by "rogue states." Yes, the cold war is over, but its
weapons are still with us and could be used. In the event of "wars over
scarce resources" -e.g. water, which is increasingly scarce in a warming
world -- this could happen. Disarmament is the solution. Voyager disarming
Dreadnought could be seen as an allegory for a problem still facing
humanity.

Well, while the rest of you are debating the probabilities of multiverses,
I'd like to commend this episode on its roots in real science fiction,
whose purpose is not just to look at science but on the human relationship
with science. The doomsday weapon here is much more believable than any
from previous treks, and I appreciate the similarities to important science
fiction of the past. Janeway's conversation with the First Minister is a
nice nod to the one in Fail Safe between the American president and the
Russian premier; quite touching, I thought. And the Cardassian and Maquis
computers battling for control as well as the hypothetical puzzles B'ellana
set up reminded me of some scenes in War Games. I don't think society has
solved the issue of the doomsday weapon, hence it is still fair game for
science fiction. Yes, we know it has to be reset by the end of the
episode, but that is not the point. It's the conversations that are
important. Nice job, Voyager.

Back in biness and aint it grand let the good times roll- ba ba bobby's
world ba ba bobby's world! Here we are returned from a trip to the rehab
center and my first episode of Star Trek Voyager in over a year is one
about a missile whose programming has gone awry.

In this sopa opera threaded episode in which we see that Tom Paris has
developed a cocaine habit amist a replase into deression and thinking he's
the ship fuck up. Tommy no longer cares about personal grooming, and has
become irrritable, and is late as a result of having to wait a around for
his dealer. Chakotay dresses him down in front of
janeway because hes been around the quadrent and knows what's up, but as
Janeway watches befuddled from the back of the conference room. Then
B-Elanna calls Tom out on his return to using (as so far this information
is only know to the Maquis crew, as we know Chako tends to leave these
sort of things out the files he sent to Tuvok in season 1 upon merging of
the crews. Even thought Tom Paris dicked him over, hes still maquis more
than Starfleet in his eagle American spirt eyes.
However attention is quickly dierterd to the large Cardassian shuttle craft
with a warp drive attached to it. Blanna attempts a risky at warp beam
over, after VOYAGER and thier SUPER STRONG CRAFTSMAN SENSORS can detect
life on a planet that is 3 weeks away at warp speed. Yes, craftsmen
Starfleet grade sensors are that damn good. And so is Harry Kim the
Transporter Chief (and subsequently nameless Maquis crew member as well) at
ship to ship beaming while at warp and B'Lanna talks to herself for a while
while tinkering about. Instead of ramming into it with a shuttle (which is
as dumb as ramming it with Voyager, but still makes more sense), or maybe
beaming a bomb over with or hell even better with out B-Elanna Torres our
half Spanish Earther-half Norther Kartagian Provence Enginner with a nice
ass, she just puts around for a while. The bomb, whose intellect is only
rivaled by Neelix'z easy bake over (also aviable from Black and Decker at
sears.com), decides that Torres is now working for the Cardies, and fears
she is there to prevent it from completing its mission. So this bomb, which
I'm assuming was bulit from spare emachine parts cant tell two planets
apart, wants to blow up some reptile looking peoples world. Janeway calls
the one leader from the worlds weakest country, Boliva IV, and the chat a
bit on subspace. This interupts Maquis crewmeber Jonas's call to score some
more blow from the Kazon, so it looks like Tom Paris is gonna have to hold
out just a little longer....what oh we've forgotten about that plot line
never mind......Back to B'elana...she can't trick her emachine mind on the
bomb, which by the way isn't about to kill her either. This goes on for 38
minuites, while Janeway decides the only option, the ONLY one left (after
wasting about 12 of thier 10 photon torpedos that are left, to ram that
fucker, after lauching all crewmembers except Tuvok off in life boats).
Tuvok being fascinated with violence as a residual effect of a recent mind
meld, stays aboard to watch the fireball tear into thier skin as ship
explodes around himself and the captain.
So she lauches all the life pods, they float all different directions. One
of them hit an asteriod, and that Kazon cruiser that constantly follows
them off the port bow cloaked (in order to keep in communication range with
the bad guy of the week, in this case the bad guy of the last 3 weeks Mr My
name is Jonas, smashing all the ones on that side).The remaining 18 pods
are scatted across a light year as the keep speed with the bomb.

So after a few hours, it seems B'Lanna just can't get that bomb to accept
that she hasn't joined Starfleet (not like she's wearing a Starfleet
Uniform or anything where did it get that idea?)
nor can she reprogram the bomb into to thinking 2+2=5, depressed and cut
off drom communication she dicks around with the computer a little more,
then Torres stumbles upon an old JPG file thats over 4000 KB from Stardate
46292.2- thats and old file from the 6th season of TNG or 1994, however u
want to view it, she clicked on it and it was some old porn vid she forgot
about and it released a really nasty Apple II virus into the bombs computer
system. The ship goes nuts when she double clicks on this then a door opens
up that leads right to to off switch that she luckily is able phaser
blowing the ship up- only 18 minuites after life support was cut. Damn
Kingon women are fistey little hotheads.

As B'Lannna beams back aboard thanks to the Transporter Skills of
......Tuvok from the command chair?, or maybe the computer, or was it the
doctor, I forget, anyway all's well that ends well. B'lanna feels like she
redeemed her self in the Chacko's mind now, besides he always wanted to
take a ride in one of those escape pods...Janeway, Tuvok, and Torres are
back on board a ship thats badly damaged, with shilds down to 3 percent,
and -2 torpedos left. Rather than call the planet and tell em eveythings
cool, so they dont comitt mass suicide, or going back to look for the life
pods, Janways decides it easier just to go forward from there, forget the
escape pods, fuck that Tom Paris storyline (she'll share some of her rocks
with him off camera to bring him around if need be if he still can't cop
anything by the time he gets back) and decides the fastest way to get
everything back to normal is just to roll credits, and hit that Voyager
reset button.

Next week: Q returns a little older, a little greyer, but hell thats still
the best thing thats come Janways way since that guy with all the wires in
his hair she banged last season. (Englsih 18th century Holograms dont
count!)

oh and 2 popcorns for DRENAUGHT! While the premise is inpausible that
they'd even find another thing from ALPHA QUAD, let alone something TORRES
built!
But its nice seeing Tom all strung out even tho we are left to make up our
own reasons why. Stuff wit h the bomb was boring, nice watching Torres's
ass, but thats about it. Oh and nice loyalty shown by Tuvok to Janeway.
What is it between these two anyway? There's MUCH more than meets the eye
here, that I'm sure of. Until next time!

@Ilinois Dude: I thought the same thing, this is a missile, and it has 12
foot celings, and plenty of space for crew at the workstations? Even the
crawlspace wouldn't be needed. Once this was built, there was no need for
space for humanoids.

I think the episode was decent, I can overlook the improbability of running
across this weapon. But it is a strange superweapon. It had to be extremely
expensive to make, but only kills 2,000,000 people? We could easily do that
with our nuclear weapons today. A weapon this sophisticated and this able
to defend itself would be better suited to yields that could do major
damage to enemy planets.

Perhaps it was a very expensive weapon (all those sophisticated defenses
don't come cheap), and when it failed the Cardassians pulled the plug. If
they could have put shields like that on Cardassian ships, they would have
done so.

Plus, for anyone who says there's no continuity in Voyager the Paris story
should be enough to prove them wrong...
--------

OH, PLEASE! You find one tiny piece of continuity and think that excuses
the hundreds of instances of lazy writing? Do you think we are stupid? As
for the Paris storyline... it all came to NOTHING. A big fat reset switch
at the end of it, to completely reset his character to what it was before.
"He was just kidding, kids!"

Jammers review hit the nail on the head here. Decent enough episode with
some pretty good person vs. computer moments but not much else beyond that.
I won't dwell on the improbability of coming across the missile in the
first place. Improbable doesn't mean impossible. The episode is what it is
and it's not half bad despite the lackluster ending.

The ongoing scenario with Paris shows that Voyager has elements that have
continuity within the series. It doesn't mean the show itself is strong
with continuity. If you put pieces of chocolate in vanilla ice cream; it
doesn't suddenly make the ice cream chocolate. Though, I will admit, I have
seen in this forum and others that people tend to overstate the lack of
continuity of this series. Just my opinion anyway.

A lot of relationships (friendship and otherwise) developed. K/D, J/C, P/T,
P/K, Paris, the Doctor, Chakotay and Torres all got a lot of character
development. The few Kazon arcs were solid enough.

There were elements of the arcs that fell flat, so I feel like the writers,
instead of trying harder, just backed off from it. Some of the character
development/relationshipping stalled entirely. Some spun in neutral for
years. Some regressed outright (I feel like Harry was more "green" in later
seasons than the guy we saw in "The Chute" for instance).

To me, S2's biggest problems were that the arc was draggy and that it
stretch plausibility that we could still be in Nistrim territory a year and
a half after Seska defected. Why were the Nistrim able to keep up with VOY?
Seska deciding to become a mother was also odd. But somehow it all worked
well enough.

I would have preferred that the writers kept going with what they were
doing here than switch gears as they did.

Of course it's improbable that they would stumble on the weapon just like
that. But that's one of the things ou have to disregard if you want to
enjoy star trek. Space is very, VERY big. Truth is in reality, there
wouldn't be any chance to happen on an inhabited planet, much less a
spacefaring planet... AT ALL. To say nothing of every other week, even
travelling at warp speed. So if you are willing to believe that, you're
willing to believe in finding a lost weapon.

1) To those people who were complaining about the odds of the weapon also
ending up in the Delta Quadrant, this was actually explained in the
episode: it also ended up nabbed by the Caretaker. Of course, it still
ends up improbably that they manage to find it a year or so later, but that
can be handwaved away. Perhaps the Dreadnought's logic circuits degraded
over time. After getting zapped by the Caretaker, it managed to reorient
itself and set a course for Cardassian space, but soon afterwards lost its
"memory" of all of that. That would explain how Voyager managed to catch
up to it.

2) Did anyone else notice a similarity to Prototype? Torres is forced to
leave the ship and try to solve a major technical problem on her own while
under great stress due to incoming danger. Bad sequencing on the staff
writer's part to have both show up in the same season. I would directly
compare the two, but I'm having a hard time deciding which one was better.
Both had some potentially good ideas, but both were ultimately boring.

3) Speaking of repeating ideas, I mentioned in my Threshold comments that
the only thing I could think of for why they did the episode was a lame
version of 2001: A Space Odyssey. And in this episode, there is no way
they weren't homaging that movie. Torres lying on her back while
lobotomizing Dreadnought was a clear reference to HAL's death. This one
was done better than Threshold, of course, but it was still just "ok"

4) One thing that really annoyed me: what was the purpose of the
"backstory" regarding Dreadnought, Torres, and Chakotay? OK, so it was
probably to make Torres feel guilty and have this be a redemption for her,
but how did it fit? Why was Chakotay so upset at Torres for using
Dreadnought? She gave it a military target rather than civilian, and she
programmed it with multiple safeguards (even though yes, it still failed).
What was so wrong about that? In case Chakotay forgot, he's in an illegal
terrorist organization. Once you accept that as morally correct, than
moving on to turning your enemy's high-powered weapon that he already used
against him doesn't seem so bad. I can understand if this is supposed to
be an allegory for a nuke or biological warfare or something, but it really
isn't (just bad Trek science of not understanding the magnitude of the
weapons they already have). So was it just because Torres didn't tell
Chakotay? OK, fine, maybe understandable then... but then it becomes
ridiculous that Torres didn't tell Chakotay in the first place (which is
ridiculous already; how long did she spend reprogramming it? Weeks?
Months? Wouldn't Chakotay find out eventually?)? So yeah, it sounds like
they created a backstory just for the purpose of creating angst and drama
and characterization, without thinking about whether or not it was even
plausible.

5) I'm finding it interesting reading Jammer's comments regarding the Paris
subplot, given that he wrote them in real-time while I already know what's
going on. Interesting that he seemed to be pretty pessimistic about it. I
definitely disagree in this episode; I thought it worked very well here.
Rather than the usual insubordination, we got an introspective piece of
dialogue with B'Elanna about how he isn't fitting in. But more importantly
is his short "Thank you" to Janeway before abandoning ship. I thought that
worked excellently, both as a conclusion to his introspection earlier
(which of course is negated by his continued insubordination) and as part
of his overall arc. It speaks to how much Tom really has changed from his
past, and it speaks to how much of it is owed to one minor little act. So
far at least, Paris is my favorite character, and it's these moments of
redemption, that he was given a second chance and recognizes it and
recognizes his real worth, that is a major reason why.

I liked this episode. Not groundbreaking but I found it entertaining even
on rewatch. I didn't like the adaptive tech. If Cardassians had the tech to
adapt to federation weapons, why didn't they use it on their ships? If the
writers had been more clever, they should have had the missile outsmart the
crew as its path to victory. Lying to Torres was a thing that didn't
require technology and gave Dreadnought a momentary edge. Or maybe since it
is the size of a ship but doesn't need a crew, a lot of shield generators
and armor were put on it and the issue for voyager is that penetrating the
shields is beyond what a single intrepid class ship can do in the amount of
time that it would take the missile to reach the target.

the space inside the weapon was an interesting issue. i remember watching
this one as a kid and thinking that janeway was crazy to want to dismantle
it for spare parts. Take out the warhead (yes), get some supplies for
voyager (sure) but you have a new vessel. Was it too big to fit in the
shuttle bay? If it didn't, then it should just follow along as a support
ship. Maybe it didn't have crew quarters or bathrooms but people serving
shifts would live on voyager and beam back and forth.

i agree with everyone about the laziness to continue to find alpha quadrant
things in the delta quadrant. However, I found that I enjoyed the little
bit of suspense and the acting in the episode overall.

This is my first time watching voyager through. Watched TNG as a kid, and
watched DS9 all the way through last year after reading so many good
things. Glad I did it. I know to temper my expectations for this series,
but I find it pretty awesome that people are still discussing these shows
some 20 years later! Definitely adds to my enjoyment.